Build a scene from one ordinary object

You can follow these steps in order or choose a single prompt. A notebook can help, but you do not need to prepare anything before beginning.

1. Choose a key, a cup or a folded receipt. Describe it using only what can be seen, heard or touched.
2. Give the object to a character who needs to leave a room. Decide why leaving is difficult right now.
3. Add a second character who wants the first to stay. Let both people talk about the object rather than the conflict.
4. Write a change in the room: a phone rings, the light fails or a door opens. Make the change affect a decision.
5. Read the scene aloud. Remove one explanation the action has already made clear, and keep one useful uncertainty.

Begin with a piece from the journal

• Let a room do more than decorate a scene
• What a character chooses not to say
• An ending does not have to explain everything